Monday, May 19, 2008

Shipment Tracking

The weekend was punctuated with reports on the whereabouts of our document (dox) to Dominica (DOM) for our bank loan. Firstly, it didn't go on the flight to the UK as it was meant to but went by truck instead, so missed the first connection. It then went by plane to BGI (Barbados) and since then we've heard no more. I hate shipment tracking, it makes my heart sink and takes me back to when I had to do it for VVIP's in the Middle East. All the small print says: no money/valuables/bodily fluids etc. Well these were all the items I had to send of course. 99% of the time, I just sent someone with the shipment (happy to have a free 24 hours in London) as I knew a person couldn't get lost in transit. Once I couldn't find anyone, I had bodily fluids to send, not for a VIP (well she was in her world) but Cruella De Vil, wife of one of our senior Manager's. She was in the UK, he was in Bahrain. She was ovulating and she didn't 'do' waiting (or contact sports clearly). You can just imagine can't you, I waited at hospital patiently, avoided any eye contact with the husband, collected the specimen jar, didn't touch the edges, packed it properly, took it to the airport, gave it to the pilot of our own DHL 757, waved goodbye to it. Nothing could go wrong. Did it arrive in London? No, of course it didn't, the plane went tech in Bergamo, the shipment was transferred to commercial and that was the last anyone heard of it. Did she ever forgive me? No, she didn't. She did however, go on to have a baby girl albeit a few months later than planned. Funnily enough she didn't name her Fiona.

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